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The office of the president should be abolished. The President of the United States, like the presidents of many other countries, has become authoritarian and dictatorial. The office has grown far too powerful, becoming a threat to liberty for American citizens and citizens of foreign nations alike. It is a power that attract tyrants, a power that the common people of the world should rightly fear and loathe.
We should substitute in its place a figurehead president who calls general elections, accepts the resignation of an outgoing prime minister and asks the leader of the party with the most seats in the House to form a new government after elections. We can even give him other duties, like finding lost puppies in national parks.
Real political power would rest with the Prime Minister, a stronger version of the House Speaker, and his cabinet, a stronger version of congressional committee chairmen. The government could be given a vote of no confidence by the full House at any time for reasons less severe than high crimes and misdemeanors.
While the constitutional system of separation of powers and checks an balances has served us well for 200 years, we should recognize that by now it does no longer. We have witness in a span of forty years, the two most abusive presidents in American history, Nixon and Bush the Frat Boy. Both acted lawlessly in a belief that the president is above the law. Congress was strong enough to do something about it the first time, but not the second. Historians will argue for decades about whether the failure to impeach and remove Bush or Cheney was a failure of strength or will.
Congress, as an institution, failed to learn the lesson of Watergate and related crimes. It failed to remain as vigilant in the thirty-five years since the downfall of one tyrannical president as they were at that time. It was completely unprepared to act against a new tyrant, even worse than the first.
While President Nixon spied on Americans illegally and set the power of the federal government against his political opponents, Mr. Bush has done that and more. In addition the the NSA spying program and politically motivated prosecutions of Democratic office holders, most notably former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, Mr. Bush also lied the nation into an unnecessary war, giving false reasons for going to war when in fact there was no reason at all. Mr. Bush then proceeded to ineptly prosecute that war, which perhaps could never have been won but is now most certainly lost. In prosecuting the unnecessary war against Iraq, Mr. Bush neglected to prosecute necessary action in Afghanistan aimed at capturing the principle suspect in a series of terrorist attacks unleashed against America on September 11, 2001. That individual, Osama bin Laden, remains at large, as do most of his lieutenants. In violation of international treaties and agreements to which the United States is a party, Mr. Bush has approved torture of individuals detained in the so-called war on terror and arranged for the prosecution for several of these individuals under a court system that denies the defendants due process of law by any reasonable standard.
Mr. Bush has made bogus claims of executive privilege in an attempt to thwart congressional investigations of the abuse of the Justice Department and asserted nonexistent constitutional powers as commander-in-chief continue the lethal occupation of Iraq. He has issued "signing statements" to legislation unilaterally voiding all or parts of an act of Congress, something he has no power to do by any stretch of the imagination. He approved of the outing of an intelligence agent as part of a political vendetta and authorized the dismissal of US Attorneys for refusing to use their offices to pursue partisan political prosecutions.
Mr. Bush further threatens to take the nation to war against Iran, asserting he needs no congressional authorization to do so; Mr. Bush is negotiating with the government of Iraq to commit American resources to the occupation of Iraq and asserts that no congressional approval is necessary.
In all this, Mr. Bush, and in many cases Mr. Cheney as well, warrants impeachment and removal.
It is, of course, a red herring to point out that Mr. Bush is not so much a sitting president as a usurper. Whether elected rightfully or appointed by crooked Supreme Court justices in a judicial coup d'etat, Mr. Bush has acted outside the constitutional limits on presidential power; he is a tyrant who acts as a dictator.
And Congress has done nothing to stop these abuses of power. The presidency today stands not as the office limited in power under the system devised by Mr. Madison and others, but as a center of absolute power in a system envisioned by Mr. Addington.
That kind of power is to be feared. It must be caged. This situation cannot stand.
The system proposed here is not so radical as it may appear. There are still checks and balances. There is still an independent judiciary. The difference is that political power shall rest in the lower house of Congress. Many of the powers now afforded the president will go to the upper house (the Senate). This would include the right to veto legislation by a majority vote. The Senate would still have the right to approve appointments, although these appointments would be made by the Prime Minister, who is a member of the House of Representatives. Another possible duty for the Senate would be the oversight of US Attorneys, completely removing them from the political realm and assuring their independence from political pressure.
Overall, the Prime Minister and his cabinet can be dismissed by a majority vote in the House. Not only could the Prime Minister be be removed for lying the nation into war, but for an inept response to a natural disaster. This results not in an immediate change in power, but in general elections. The Prime Minister of the United States will be accountable to the House of Representatives as a whole and ultimately, to the people. A lack of transparency, which has been a hallmark of Bush's dictatorial style, would land the Prime Minister in hot water with the opposition, with members of his own party and should be enough to lead to the fall of the government.
The genius of the present system, and the reason it worked so well for so long, is that it is based on a fear of power. Power has now become concentrated in the executive branch. Accordingly, the presidency has become antithetical to democracy and liberty. That is the crisis we now face.
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